Since 1999, a number of Indigenous sentencing courts have been established in Australia that use Indigenous community representatives to talk to a defendant about their offending and to assist a […]

This paper The current controversy with respect to mandatory minimum sentencing laws takes place within a wider context of a general discussion on sentencing reform. This discussion has generally focused […]

Within the last few years there has been an increasing trend in Australia towards the recognition of what can be loosely called ‘Aboriginal courts’, more specifically called ‘Nunga courts’, ‘Murri […]

The effectiveness of Indigenous criminal courts is regularly debated in the public sphere with the many claiming these courts to promote ‘soft Indigenous justice’. There are many differences in the […]

Circle sentencing commenced in New South Wales in February 2002 in Nowra Local Court. Since then the program has been expanded to Armidale, Bourke, Brewarrina, Dubbo, Kempsey, Lismore, Mount Druitt […]

This paper will give a ‘criminological perspective’ on mandatory sentencing. It will however largely avoid the issues of the effect of mandatory sentencing provisions on the judicial process and judicial […]

In their statistical analyses of higher court sentencing in South Australia, Jeffries and Bond found evidence that Indigenous offenders were treated more leniently than non-Indigenous offenders, when they appeared before […]

This study examines sentencing outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous adult offenders convicted in the lower courts of South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia between 2005 and 2007. The […]

Circle sentencing is an alternative method of sentencing Aboriginal offenders which involves the offender’s community in the sentencing process. This bulletin considers whether people who participate in circle sentencing show […]